


The End

by Galexi



Category: Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (2005), Doctor Who (Big Finish Audio)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst and Feels, Angst with a Happy Ending, Classic Who Companions Are Awesome, Gen, I love Big Finish, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Mentioned Past Companions (Doctor Who), One Shot, POV First Person, POV The Doctor (Doctor Who), Sort Of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2020-11-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:20:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27685490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Galexi/pseuds/Galexi
Summary: The Doctor is dying for the final time. This time there's no escaping the end.
Kudos: 4





	The End

**Author's Note:**

> Guess who found a fic in an old notebook from 2010? It was pretty bad, but the basic idea was good so I rewrote the weird bits, updated the story, and laughed at the strange thing that I wrote ten years ago that would later appear in the show! Does that mean I'm basically an Official Doctor Who person if I predicted a scene years before it was shown? Probably not, but it's fun to pretend :)

Inside the swirling clouds of the Time Vortex, my TARDIS floats calmly. I’m lying on my bed that sways ever so gently with the turn of the Universe. Time has finally caught up with this old Time Lord. I know it’s my last night. My last end. My last goodbye.

I’m dying.

After so many regenerations, I’ve reached my last. Not that I mind. Everything ends eventually.

_Planets come and go. Stars perish. Matter disperses, coalesces, forms into other patterns, other worlds. Nothing is eternal._

It’s not that I don’t want to live, because I do, I truly do. But it’s okay because I have already _lived_.

I’ve run to the end of the Universe itself and come out on the other side. I’ve saved lives and stopped monsters. I’ve met so many people and lost so many more that I’ve never even knew the names of.

I’ve wasted almost as much time running from the icy claws of death as I have trying to hide from myself. I was the rebel Time Lord who messed with history. Time could be rewritten. I could save lives.

I haven’t given up, though. The Doctor never gives up no matter how bleak it might look. But I’ve finally accepted the truth of the situation. I have made peace with my death. It’s simply the next big adventure into the unknown. Perhaps I will run to the end of death itself and come on the other side to face the next adventure.

Who knows?

I’ve known my final chapter was coming to a close for quite some time now. My body has become old and stiff. The only other time I’d died of old age was at the South Pole on Earth. It doesn’t feel like it did before.

I’d contemplated returning to my beloved Earth for one final time, but I knew how much trouble I could get up to there. I never really found out if trouble simply finds me or I am the instigator of it. I’ll never know now, which is a shame. All these lives I’ve lived, and I’ll still die with unanswered questions.

So instead I’ve chosen to spend my last moments here in my TARDIS. I don’t want another hero’s death. A hero’s death means that there is someone in danger. I’ve never really been a hero.

Once upon a time, I left Gallifrey to explore the universe. Curiosity drove me out into the stars where I’d hoped to find my truth. And I have travelled further than I could have ever possibly imagined. I searched to find what was it that kept the balance between good and evil. Why does goodness always triumph despite the fact it isn’t a good survival strategy? Why do loyalty, self-sacrifice, and love prevail?

So many questions left unanswered, but along the way, I have discovered so much more. I’d chosen my name oh so many centuries ago, long before I stole my TARDIS and ran away. It was the promise I made, an oath to keep until my final breath.

_Never cruel or cowardly. Never give up. Never give in. Hate is always foolish, and love is always wise. Run like hell because you always need to. Laugh at everything because it's always funny. Always try to be nice, but never fail to be kind._

Out here, I am far away from any danger. This part of the Time Vortex is quiet, devoid of any Chronovores, Pantophagens, Reapers, or Vortisaurs. There are no monsters or people who needed me to save them.

But I’ve kept my promise.

All those people don’t need me anymore. The universe is safe. And it will be protected for millennia to come.

But not by me.

You see, I know the people that have come together for the rest of eternity to ensure this.

In my last few years, I’ve completed my farewell tour and seen them all for one last time. I’d said a final goodbye to those that I could, an unexpected first hello to others, and shared an uneventful conversation to those who didn’t know me. Rather than watching from afar, as I’d done so before when I had believed that I was facing my last regeneration, I made sure I talked to them all. There were those who recognised me despite my new face, those who took some convincing, and those who could never know my new identity.

I looked for my friends and found those who’d learned how to defend themselves and others, to fight for justice wherever inequality was found, and to heal all those in need.

They don’t need me anymore. After all my scheming and meddling and manipulating, it wasn’t needed in the end. They were better than anything I ever planned for them to be, achieving more than I could ever imagine. My beautiful, wonderful, amazing friends. I’m so proud of them.

They never needed me; they did it all on their own. Many of them still wanted me, but it’s time to go now. My story is coming to a close, but it doesn’t mean that it is over. It is just the beginning of a new one.

The lonely job that I had placed upon my own shoulders had finally been shared with so many people scattered across Time and Space and Universes. To them, it had never seemed like a burden that at times it had been for me. Instead, defending the Universe was a privilege they could share with others.

So here I am, floating between the clouds of Everything and Nothing. Here, where time is both eternal and non-existing at once. The Time Vortex is not just the place where Time and Space meet but is made of every possibility, all of them both fact and fiction. There is everything that ever was, ever could be, and never was. Everything and Nothing coexisting in peace. Everybody lives. And everybody dies.

The Time Vortex, despite what you might think due to its name, exists outside of Time itself. Out there, beyond the doors of my TARDIS, the Time War hadn’t even begun, yet it had already been won. A little girl is waiting for me in her garden. But she is also the girl who had loved and lost yet found herself a home with the man who had waited for her. A former journalist still travels the stars and protects the Earth from her attic.

_You’re going. You’ve been gone for ages. You’re already gone. You’re still here. You’ve just arrived. I haven’t even met you yet. It all depends on who you are and how you look at it. Strange business, Time._

My breath lurches as one of my kidneys fails. The pesky things are always the first to go. It has truly started. The final. The finale. The last page. There is no turning back now. There will be no last-minute plans or a surprise mysterious reprieve from death as there had been oh so many times before.

It suddenly strikes me that for the first time in all my life that I can remember, I am alone. It’s just me. Every possibility is waiting outside my door, but in here there is only one thing that is going to happen. I am going to die.

I am going to die alone.

“Don’t I get a rewind then?” I ask the ceiling of stars above me. I don’t know if they are real or just something my TARDIS had created for me. I’ve visited every star in creation, but it does get hard keeping track of everything I’d seen at my age. The stars projected above me just continue to move sluggishly in a silent reply. Funny word that: sluggishly. A word that describes many things, except perhaps slugs. Or stars, normally. They burned so bright and so quickly. Maybe some of the stars above me now shine a little brighter in reply, but it could be all in my head. “I guess not.”

But, oh, of course! Stupid old Doctor. I was never alone. I haven’t been alone for so long now. I can barely remember a time when She wasn’t there. She is always there. My gorgeous beautiful sexy old girl. She’s always been there for me since the moment I stole her. And she stole me in return. The magic blue box and her silly old Time Lord companion whom she took to the stars.

My eyes are fluttering shut now. It’s difficult to breathe, but it doesn’t hurt. When I force my eyes open again, the stars above aren’t forming any constellations that I’ve ever seen before. At least, I assumed they were stars. The bright colours that shone and danced in the deep blue sky were new to me. I’ve never seen them before. Something new.

“Thank you, Old Girl,” I whisper on my next exhale. I don’t know whether I manage to smile, but I’m sure she knows. She always knows. “Thank you for showing me the stars.”

My eyes are closing. I don’t think they’ll open again.

I feel a cool hand upon my forehead and suddenly my mind is filled with a billion or more voices. Male and female. Human and Alien. Thousands of languages and accents of people across the Universe. They were the people who had ever loved me.

The loudest of them all are the voices of my family. My parents on Gallifrey, my older brothers and younger sisters, aunts and uncles, nieces and nephews. Scattered across time were my wives, my children, my grandchildren, and greatgrandchildren. And, of course, my companions, for they had become my family too. Long ago, I was told that I had the biggest family on Earth. She was right, as she always was. I had the biggest family in the universe.

For a single moment, I catch a glimpse of them all. Susan and David are sat together in a cosy room warmed by an open fire. They’re surrounded by their children and grandchildren. The latest addition to their large family, little Suzie, sleeps peacefully in her Great-Grandmother's arms as she tells them of the amazing adventures she once shared with her own Grandfather.

Sarah has her arms around her son and daughter and their friends as they look out of the skylight of an attic in Eaton. Jo stands with her husband and one of their many grandchildren, Rio, in the Amazon Jungle. Ryan shares a hug with his grandfather in Yorkshire. In New York, Amy, her hair now white rather than a fiery red, reminisces with Rory about the life they led so many years ago. Their daughter, who finally looked younger than them despite now being almost a hundred years older, has her arms wrapped around them both.

There are a few other couples scattered throughout, either having gone travelling together or been introduced through me. Barbara and Ian, Tegan and Nyssa, Polly and Ben. Mostly, my companions are surrounded by their friends. Jamie and Zoe, Liv and Helen, Charley and C'rizz.

But some are alone. I see Katarina, the first companion I ever lost. Adric's crooked beam lights up his face as he works on a new idea. Clara, impossibly brave Clara. Kamelion who taught me death could be a blessing, and Astrid whom I set free to travel the stars.

Bill and Heather are also travelling the stars together, hand in hand. Back on Earth, Molly clutches her string of rosary beads to her chest as she looked up to those very same stars from a field hospital in France. Over ninety years later, Wilf waves at those stars and whoops with joy from a hilltop in London.

There is so much joy saturated into each and every moment. In the TARDIS, Rose, and Micky, and Jackie, and Martha, and Jack, and Donna are celebrating loudly after guiding the Earth back home. Ace is laughing as she wields a baseball bat above her head in victory. Her trusty, if slightly battered, backpack full of explosives is slung over her shoulder. Peri and Erimem giggle as they both try to teach the other about their own culture at a costume party. Benny groans in despair in a pub at my latest antics.

At UNIT HQ, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart stands at attention and salutes. Scattered across the battlefields and command centres of Earth, I see that the old soldiers that I had known lifetimes ago are young once more. Some look towards the sky, whilst others bow their heads as if in prayer. There is Kate, Emily, Erisa, Malcolm, Harry, Mike, and Liz, each surrounded by their friends and colleagues. Osgood and Osgood are entangled together in a familiar long stripy scarf in the depths of the Black Archives.

I catch a glimpse of each of Romana's thirteen's regenerations, and every single regeneration of the Master (or Missy, depending on their preference), totalling far more than what should have been their allotted number. The Corsair in both female and male forms pops up multiple times, each with the same stunning smile. I see my old friend Professor Chronotis once more. Narvin is stood outside his TARDIS on Gallifrey. Also under the burnt orange sky of Gallifrey is Leela, who'd found herself a home far from her savage beginnings.

And there are so many more. From Angela, Antimony, and Ashildr, to Verity, Vicki, and Vislor.

Faces of friends scattered across time and space. They come so fast they almost blur together, but I can still hear each of their voices as they spoke.

Elizabeth, Eliza, and Izzy. Fey, Flip, and Fitz. Yazmin and Tasmin.

Each voice sings out to me, offering me peace.

Carol, Melody, Aria. Grace, Faith, Bliss.

Everyone has the same words on their lips. The same three words.

Some are whispered almost silently. Some are yelled in victory. Each is tinged with history and memory. Some are pure joy, others are relief, and a few are tinged with bitter regret. I’ve touched so many lives across the universe, and not all had ended happily.

Adam, Adelaide, and Andra'ath. They are just the start of a list longer than I can bear.

But then there is the faces and voices of those I never knew until now.

It seems the story of the Doctor had spread across every corner of the Universe. There are those I'd saved but never learnt the names of and those that were inspired by my legacy. Their voices called out to me, not only from this Universe but from so many others. Parallel universes, and mirror universes, and soap bubble universes. It seemed that just like me, the myth and legend had spread from star system to star system, then from galaxy to galaxy until the whole universe knew the tale. Yet still it travelled, unconstrained by the barriers between this universe and the next. Sometimes it travelled across with those who hopped from one Universe to another. Others took it with them as they tore through the Void to reach a Parallel World.

But in other worlds, the story just appeared. Perhaps it was an idea so strong that no boundaries could contain it. Maybe it was the one singular universal concept. It seemed to creep into the dreams of those who searched for adventure and thrived in the imaginations of those who believed. After all, every story ever told really happened once upon a time.

William, Patrick, Jon, and Tom.

Peter, Colin, Sylvester, and Paul.

Sydney, Cecil, and David.

Jacqueline, Elizabeth, and Billie.

Terry, Kit, and Steven.

Ron, Delia, and Murry.

Lorraine, Julie, and Russell.

Jason, Nicholas, and Gary.

And so many more. Even you. 

And the words they say are, “Thank you, Doctor.”

They all speak at once, yet I can hear each and every single voice. I see them all. Time Lords experience time differently to every other being in creation, you see. A little Time Lord trick. All experienced in less than a second. Billions of voices calling out the same three words to me. I see you all.

All except one. For one solitary voice calls out in the silence that follows, “Affirmative. I agree with the Masters and Mistresses. Thank you, Master.”

And then

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by this beautiful quote from the amazing film 'Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium' (2007)
>
>> When King Lear dies in Act V, do you know what Shakespeare has written? He's written, ‘He dies.’ That's all, nothing more. No fanfare, no metaphor, no brilliant final words. The culmination of the most influential work of dramatic literature is ‘He dies.’ It takes Shakespeare, a genius, to come up with ‘He dies.’ And yet every time I read those two words, I find myself overwhelmed with dysphoria. And I know it's only natural to be sad, but not because of the words ‘he dies’ but because of the life we saw prior to the words. I've lived all five of my acts, Mahoney, and I am not asking you to be happy that I must go. I'm only asking that you turn the page, continue reading... and let the next story begin. And if anyone ever asks what became of me, you relate my life in all its wonder and end it with a simple and modest 'He died.' 
> 
> This fic also includes a few quotations from Doctor Who in italics. The first quote is said by the Sixth Doctor in _'The Mysterious Planet'_ , the second is a blend of quotes from the Twelfth Doctor era ( _'Hell Bent'_ and _'Twice Upon A Time'_ ), and the final quote is said by the Seventh Doctor in _'Dragonfire'_.
> 
> Though, let's hope that Doctor Who doesn't end for many years to come! Hopefully, I managed to at least mention your favourite companion. Let me know down below who your favourites are, especially if I failed to mention them! You never know, I might edit this later and add them. As you might have guessed, I love practically all the companions and then watched Classic Who and discovered Big Finish and fell in love with so many more. 
> 
> Happy Anniversary Doctor Who, may you never die <3 <3
> 
> ~~am i posting this at the exact time the first doctor who episode ended? yes i am! hush now (:~~


End file.
